LAW AND LOVE IN AN OFFICE.

Otago Witness, Issue 4031, 16 June 1931, Page 66

LAW AND LOVE IN AN OFFICE.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) _. . . LONDON, May 7. Without exception the dramatic critics shower high praise—undoubtedly all of it well-deserved —upon Miss Marie Ney (Wellington), who has added another theatrical triumph to her already long list. This New Zealand actress has the great gift of getting right into each character she is selected to portray, and to put it right over the footlights, and no two bear the smallest resemblance to any other. . At the Duke of York’s the new attraction is “London Wall,” a three-act comedy by John Van Druten, of “Young Woodley ” fame. It happens, too, that the actor who made his mark as Young Woodley, namely, Frank Lawton, plays a prominent part, but a totally different one, in “London Wall,” which is a comedy centring round typists and their life in the city. He is a clerk from another office who comes in on many pretexts of research to have flirtations with the pretty junior typist. Each character is exceedingly well drawn and acted; and the play is very human, but it does not truly picture office life in any well-ordered business house. Nevertheless, it has had a most cordial press, and optimists among the critics have decided that it will captivate all London. The first night aroused a full house to a frenzy of enthusiasm. The author was not there, but Marie Ney was. Then, and at each performance since, the audience has recalled her again and again, and has demanded a “speech.” Watch the theatre after any performance and you will find a queue of admirers waiting for Marie, many with pen in hand, ready for her autograph. “London ’Wall” requires neither elaborate scenery nor costly clothes, for it is all the work-a-day setting of a solicitor’s office, where love and law combine to provide the audience with character peeps of interest, variety, and humour. An excellent outline of the story is given by The Times’ critic, who. remarking that Mr Van Druten is a dramatist of rare quality, proceeds: “His style binds his work, binds it so firmly that even when he is writing of a lawyer’s office with almost too much knowledge of it, even when his love of suggestive detail seems to put a brake on the action, we are content. The preliminary skirmish may be a little slow, but the slowness is of time only; nothing in the office of Walker, Windermere & Co. is dull while Mr Van Druten presides over it. To watch Mr Van Druten bring up his troops is delightful, because, whether he moves fast or slowly, he has power to give to the preliminary movements unity with the main battle. Here, when he has at his leisure made us smell the dust of the general office and feel its routine of rush and slackness of work and gossip, when he has shown us Birkinshaw eavesdropping at the telephone, Miss Hooper sharpening the air with her acid briskness, Miss Milligan doing her job with the grave eagerness of extreme youth at 30s a week, Miss Janus distributing her competence and good sense among them all, and young Mr '•■(Brewer sleekly at ease on the edge of the typists’ table, he allows his theme to emerge. And the advantage is that before the main action develops we have already seen his people in the round. Hec. Hammond, the clerk

vnun<, the ? ffice below, who i s almost too wlmth’ certainly too shy, to be sure or> - he I 1 V with Miss Milligan beforJ’ establls!led .in our imagination betoie Miss Janus, in the interest of nu? s an o e that X °. Wn life has puts courage into him; and Miss Millican 8 almost childish integrity is plain before Mr Brewer attempts Ids per” X S n°U UP ° n her ’ The battle, then, more ? S ° n a , small seale-no 11101 e than the story of how a girl typist was saved from disaster and given to a DrXnXl erk T but H i3 ’ as Van rlfirn f * S a genuine battle of a humn C n’ k'- ery P artlcl Pator in it being TU n -i b m". kno "' n and understood.” of thl Dai 'I e q ra Ph: One great quality of this sort of playwriting is that it inspires the actors to be subtle also. We all know, for instance, that Miss Marie a first - rat . e actress; but I do not think I ever realised what a needle-sharp eje tor character she possesses till T bTn, ? e i pie . ture Miss Janus, the kindneaited and worldly-wise woman of 35 desperate m the failure of her struggle to achieve marriage and a home. This is the chief performance of the play Hannen Swaffer (Daily Express): . . . But the play i s made by Marie wno> as the typist enamoured of *" k- t? U £ c 1 diplomat, gives a performance which has moments of sheer beauty. Many other press notices are equally emogistic of Miss Ney’s performance.